Mr. CLARK. I think it would make a big difference. I recently headed a task force called the Task Force on Freedom To Vote. And our conclusion after a very lengthy study, and I think a fairly comprehensive study, was, there should be no residency requirement of any nature insofar as the vote for presidency is involved, other than that they register even as late as election day itself, because the only problems are mechanical, being sure that the person is qualified to vote, that he votes in the right place, and just votes one time. It does not matter whether you are in New Hampshire or Texas or Kentucky or wherever you may be, your opportunity to know about the candidates for Presidency are just about the same.

Senator Cook. I was very amazed to find out, in researching some of this, that there is one State in the East where there is a 2-year residency requirement for anybody to vote, they have to live in the State at least 2 years. They have to be 21 to beign with, and they have to be a resident for 2 years. And it also amazed me that you did not have to be there if you were either a doctor or schoolteacher or a preacher. And I do not know what gave such authority to those groups over and above everyone else to vote in an election. But I have a notion that if anybody filed suit on it it would soon be thrown out.

Mr. CLARK. I think so too. Actually there are about 33 States today that have a 1-year residency requirement. Most of them have a waiver provision for a presidential election. As a matter of fact, we exclude about 8 million people from the right to vote for President through irrelevant requirements of residency.

Senator Cook. I have just one last question.

Why is it so difficult to get this done? What do you think is the real hangup? What do you think is in the mind of the State legislature-what do you think is in the mind of the electorate, for instance, in New Jersey? Do you think we are going through a period of some backlash? I think, for instance, in the State of Ohio, as I said this morning, that the young people were really thrown a loaded gun. It was not only whether they could vote at 18, but also whether they could serve on juries, and also whether they could consume alcoholic beverages, and also whether they could hold public office. And I have a notion that the State of Ohio did not really do the 18- or 19-year-old group at all a favor in putting it on the ballot that way.

But do you think this is the basic hangup of legislatures and individuals, that somehow or other I did not vote at 18, and I was not capable at least they make a judgment that I am sure they would not admit to their children, I do not think they would admit to their children that they were not capable of voting at 18, because we always tell our children how hard it was at 18, and how independent we were, and how free and easy it was, and we get away with it with all these white lies, and I wonder whether we feel this way.

Mr. CLARK. My son is 16 today. My wife at the breakfast table was reciting all her wonderful accomplishments by 16. You could not believe it, you would think she was Joan of Arc.

Senator Cook. We went through it on Sunday with our 16-year-old.

Mr. CLARK. It was a good day.

It is lethargy more than anything else. The polls that I have seen indicate and the people that I have talked to lead me to believe that the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this country think that our 18-year-olds should vote. But we come very slowly to reform. One of our major questions is whether our institutions can adapt swiftly enough to meet present needs, or whether we will just tinker around and piddle around and not get the job done. There is great lethargy. I never experienced this because I never have run for office, but for candidates, I guess particularly for people in office, any change in the electorate poses some risk. And why fool around with it?

I will be very interested in watching how the recommendation of this task force that I mentioned, the basic recommendation being universal voter enrollment fares. Because what that would really mean is that the number of people that participate in virtually every election in the United States on the average would more than double. The presidential election would go up from 60 to 85 percent, probably, above where it used to be, and municipal elections would frequently we do not have a 20-percent turnout, some less than 10 percent vote for very important urban offices-would double or triple. That is risk, for an incumbent. We will just have to hope that they will put belief in the system above personal interest and help expand the actual participation in the democratic process so that the people can choose.

Senator Cook. I think one of the things that bothers me that I now find-we had yesterday all the young gentlemen who were organizing campaigns in Oregon and in Ohio. And yet when you look at the record, when the State of Georgia went to 18-year-olds in 1943 it passed by an overwhelming majority with no organization at all.

In 1955 when the State of Kentucky went to 18 by over 2-to-1 majority, there was no organization at all. Is it now because we have become such an organized society, or is it because of backlash, or is it because of a combination of both that we now have to sit down and raise money, we have to set up an organization, we have to open headquarters, we have to make a concerted campaign? Have we changed that much?

Mr. CLARK. Well, I am afraid so. It is considerably more difficult, to ventilate ideas and to get discussion and to get effective action. As we have continued to urbanize, and our population has risen steadily, we have become more anonymous individually. Immense organizational efforts seemed to be required for any major action in the political arena today.

Senator Cook. A young man yesterday said that in the State of Ohio that they came to the conclusion that all of the people of Ohio put the younger group into three classifications. Their own children, the children next door, and the media child. And they felt that where they really fell short in trying to convince people to vote for the younger group, younger adult to vote, was because they ran into a mass attitude toward the mass media child.

Do you feel that there is some substance in this? In effect, what they were saying, Mr. Clark, was that the small percentage of the young adults in this country that seek change through demonstrations, and seek change through destruction, are made to appear way out of proportion, and obviously so, to the young adults in this country that really want the franchise and can really handle that franchise, and these young men yesterday really had very little good to say about the media in relation to whether their case was being covered or whether the 2-percent case was being covered.

Mr. CLARK. It may be because of my particular experience, but I get a little different impression about the backlash. I think people of this country are more aware of young people and more aware of their quality than they have probably ever been and the underlying and long-range effect of the turbulence that we have seen is to cause the older generation to be aware that there is something disturbing here, and that they had better address themselves to it and see what it is.

Though the analogy may not be very good, take open housing legislation as an example. When we first introduced open housing legislation in the Congress in 1966 we had not experienced the terrible riots of Newark and Detroit. And after we experienced them the common assumption was that the backlash would be so vast that open housing, which had failed in 1966 and 1967, had no chance in the spring of 1968. Before the assassination of Dr. King, and I think because of the awareness that there was something profoundly wrong that we had to do something, the Senate broke cloture and voted overwhelmingly and before Dr. King's murder for open housing.

I have confidence in the commonsense of people. It sinks through -it is so manifest to me-that this generation is the best motivated and best educated and tough-minded group of young people that have come along. I think they are going to do good.

Senator Cook. I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion. I hope that in your first analysis, that you think they are more aware of them, you are right. But I have a notion that we have got far more people, that we have to pull kicking and screaming into the 20th century than your analysis really portrays. I really had this feeling when I read remarks of Members of our body on the floor of the Senate that obviously they should not have the right to vote, look at all the problems that are occurring on our college campuses, when we realize that it is less than 2 percent of the entire population. This is an excuse, not a reason. This is an excuse for not allowing a vital part of our society to be an integral part of the political system, not a reason. And when Members of the Congress say that we do not want this infestation of the college campus, what could be finer in this country than an infestation of the finest political system in the world on a college campus?

Again this to me is an excuse and not a reason. And I have got a notion that there is a lot of pulling and tugging that has got to be done. I hope you are right, but I have a notion that the percentage is less than what we may think it is.

Mr. CLARK. I hope we will get the chance to find out.
Senator COOK. I sure hope so.

Thank you very much.

Senator BAYH. Thank you very much, Mr. Clark. You have been very kind and very patient, and you have made a special contribution. We know how busy you are. We appreciate the fact that you have made a special effort to be here with us this afternoon.

Mr. Springer, will you proceed.

STATEMENT OF PVT. GERALD SPRINGER, A MEMBER OF THE U.S. ARMY RESERVE AT FORT KNOX, KY.

Private SPRINGER. My name is Gerry Springer. I am currently serving in the U.S. Army Reserve at Fort Knox.

For the past year I served as chairman of the Cincinnati Committee To Lower the Voting Age to Nineteen.

Despite the fact that the issue lost very narrowly in Ohio, by less than 1 percent of the vote, we did manage to win in Hamilton County (Cincinnati)-by over 10,000 votes. And I got to know and work with for 3 months many of the young people in that community who are quite concerned about the issue.

I will take a few minutes here and discuss the merits of the 18year-old as a voter. I can tell you that he is intelligent, articulate, well informed on the issues, and concerned about the city he lives in today and which he will inherit tomorrow.

I maintain that those are not the reasons we should give the 18year-old the vote. We should give him the vote simply because he has a stake in our society. You can take an individual who has never gone to school, who is illiterate, who is uneducated, who has never gone 5 miles away from his home, and who is grossly unaware of what goes on in the world. But that individual can be hungry, and if he is hungry, he has a stake in electing somebody who is going to give him a job. This is a simplified example of the very essence of this democracy, that if someone has an interest in our society, we give him a right to exercise a voice.

Let us take a look at our 18-year-olds. Our 18-year-olds have completed their compulsory education. As far as the State is concerned, an 18-year-old is educated. Eighteen-year-olds pay taxes, 18-year-olds are considered adults before courts of criminal law, and 18-year-olds can fight and die for their country. And yet despite all these responsibilities which our young people have it has only been 1 or 2 percent who have participated in violence, and it is only because they have no political voice that they respond with violence. I think the time has come to give what the President referred to as the young silent Americans, whatever that figure is, a political voice also. And the only way we can do that is to give them the vote. What hope, I wonder, do we have for our future if we turn off the very people who are the future? I do not think this is what we want to do. I think we want to do away with the generation gap. I think we want to unite our people under one system of government. That is really what is at stake here, whether we have sufficient faith in our system of government to think it is wrong not to include the young. And in a very real sense we are being asked to make a commitment to our political process.

What are the consequences if we do not do this?

We are asking our young people to be responsible, and we deny them responsibility. And we asked them not to drop out, and we deny them the one amendment that would let them in.

I do not think this is in the American tradition. And that is the very question that we have to deal with, not the statistics that we heard the past few days, not whether they are educated or not, but we are being asked to make a commitment to our young people and keep it.

We are not giving them a weapon-guns or whatever-we are giving them the vote. It is not that the young people will take over the country, they will only have a vote.

It has got to be worth it.

I will be glad to answer any questions you may have.

Senator BAYH. I will say for the record that it was my good fortune last fall to be at a meeting in Ohio where Mr. Springer addressed a group on the subject of the 18-year-old vote. I have not seen a more succinct, appealing presentation of the real needs than Mr. Springer made. I appreciate the fact that at considerable inconvenience and expense to himself he was able to come here and address us today.

I think, if I might say so, that you typify the average young American, the type of spokesman, the kind of person who has articulate concern for providing leadership, and is going to have the opportunity to exercise this ballot.

What do you think the outcome of the next referendum in Ohio is going to be on the 18-year-old vote?

Private SPRINGER. I would think it would be successful. But I imagine that we are going to have a Federal constitutional amendment. And I would hope that by 1972 we will have people all over the country voting. The danger, it seems to me, of voting on a State. by State basis-it has been mentioned before-is that the right to vote is so basic that it should not depend upon what State you happen to live in. If we are concerned about black people voting we should not be able to say that no black people living in Kansas can vote but others can.

If we believe that young people are responsible enough to participate in our society, they should be able to participate in their State governments as well as the Federal government, and be able to participate simply by virtue of being an American citizen. There are some 10 million young people who do not live in the four States that presently have the vote. And they will be denied 3 years of their lives in participating in the American political process. And they are a very important 3 years.

During the course of the campaign I spent 3 months, every day, going from one high school to another, visiting high school and college campuses, and giving 45-minute presentations and talking to these people. And these were only high school students. But at this age they are starting to become concerned about politics, they are developing a political philosophy and gaining an interest. At that age we should not immediately close the doors to them, we should say, take your interest and become a part. But what do we do? We